LoRaWAN - Actuator Control Remotely

Hello, I am new to working with LoRaWAN. I have several questions about it. I have a LoRa CubeCell HTCC AB-01 module (Heltec) and a UG87 gateway (Ursalink). I am working with them to develop a remote control project for an actuator. The module can be programmed in Arduino IDE. I have run the tests using the examples provided by Arduino: LoRaSender, LoRaReceiver, Ping-Pong and LoRaWAN, and they have all worked in the module correctly. I would like to know some things:

  1. How does the LoRaWAN sample code work? What exactly does it do? What does it consist of?

  2. How to send the information that the module sends and that TTN receives to a local server to be able to work with it (manipulate, classify, filter, etc.)?

  3. How to modify the code that is loaded to the module so that it can remotely control an actuator?

Any information you can offer me will be very helpful. Thank you.

There are a number of existing threads here about the fact that TTN is not presently very suited to control of remote devices. Currently TTN only operates LoRaWAN class A, which means that the only opportunity to send a command message down to a node is in immediate response to an uplink message from the node. So TTN works best for sensor nodes that might very infrequently and with no time urgency benefit from a mode-tuning command sent down. It doesn’t work well for things which are remote actuators, because they have to keep sending a packet up (even if they have no useful data to report) just to see if you’ve been trying to send them a command.

Hello, I use TTN because, as I mentioned in the beginning, I am new to LoRaWAN and in the module quick start guide they propose to register the module in TTN and have the tests done there. Considering your response and my need. What could I use to replace TTN? That it meets the purpose of receiving information and remote control? What can you tell me about the other questions?

That’s like a week long course on learning to program (or learning to read the code), learning to read the TTN help information on data integration and the last one is back to learning to program - you’ve got your work cut out for you here - I’d suggest finding an electronics / embedded engineering student who will work for beer to help you out.

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If you want something that can do class C you’d probably look at Chirpstack instead of TTN. But getting that going is a question for their forum, not this one.

And as Nick pointed out, there’s a lot of challenging embedded development work to getting DIY LoRaWAN projects going.